


"It is about the ghost-life that hovers over the furniture of our lives..."

by CrookedBunny



Category: Short Stories - Fandom, War - Fandom
Genre: Afterlife, Confusion, Danger, Dangerous, Death, Fire, Personal essay - Freeform, Short Story, Terror, War, ghost - Freeform, sergeant, unexpected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 03:32:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11153355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrookedBunny/pseuds/CrookedBunny
Summary: War will never end. Not when the Earth is brimming with human life...





	1. Short stories

**Author's Note:**

> Was originally written as an English essay for class. Seeing as I have finished school now I want to to give my stories a better purpose. Enjoy? Apologies for any bad grammar.

The sun was beating down but a cooling breeze accompanied it, weaving it's way through the dried patches of grass and picking up the sand along with it. A bird screeches from above as it watched the four ant-like figures below making their way across the vast desert. The smell of gunpowder was strong and so was the faint scents of sweat and blood but that didn't matter to them. All that mattered was getting back to base and away from the smoking mess behind them.

Their base was situated back in Baghdad and that alone will take only a few hours to get there. If they had a car or any sort of vehicle that is. So they went for the only other option and walked it back. No one spoke the entire while they walked apart from the occasional mutter or to the point out the right direction for them to go. Walking through this region alone was dangerous in itself but walking through this region while dressed in elite soldier uniforms was just a cry to be shot at. Night time was dangerous too but the men soon slowed down for the night by a dry well they come across not that long ago.

Renegade Sergeant McLoughlin looked up from the fire he had been warming himself with and scanned the faces around him that were encased in the orange glow of the flames. He gave a small smile at his unit. No matter what they went through, what type of job they were on or the risks they had to take, they always manage to get out without loss. He was and considered himself to be the luckiest soldier in all the Delta camp to have such a team with him.

McLoughlin glanced over at the two men who were playing cards whilst arguing who had to 'go fish' next. These two men were his subordinates Sergeant Samwell and Specialist Ted Barnes. Teddy for short. Sergeant Samwell came back from Iowa, where he had a girl waiting for him for when they finished up this rotation. Samwell often informed them of their talks and it seemed she finally got him to commit to the idea of having children. Much against Samwell's judgement, the men all agreed he would make a good father. Specialist Barnes, Teddy, was a bit on the young side but could hold his own and his team during their jobs. He grew up in Brooklyn with his mother and his sister. No girlfriends or a wife or a significant other to hold him back, he opted to try for the army just to see what his father had saw in it. Now he was a Specialist to the highly ranked bomb disposal unit that they are. With the renegade Sergeant McLoughlin to lead them through.

His task was to lead his men into a job and out of a job safe in one piece. They all had a job in the safe-keeping and disposing of bombs around any part of this region where a bomb was sighted but McLoughlin was the one who puts on the suit. He was the one who dealt with the bombs directly if needed to and usually that was always the case. It was what he did and even with the close calls he always managed to disarm them before any further damage to his men or the citizens watching could be made. He so far has disarmed and shut off eight hundred and forty-two bombs during his rotations and he expected this figure to increase in further by the time he would finish this single rotation and moved on to the next. McLoughlin didn't have what you would call a family to go back to. Sure, he had a wife, had but they divorced a long time ago. Yeah, she still lived in his house with their son but he didn't really mind. They'd married too young but he always made sure to keep contact for his boy. Other than that, he spent his days going through rotations, disarming bombs, find causes and conclusions to how a blast might have occurred and just simply staying alive.

Mcloughlin looked up from his thoughts to study the silent man who was keeping watch until it was Samuel's shift. Specialist Hartnell hadn't said much since the ambush but this wasn't uncommon. He was a man of very few words and didn't say much unless it was necessary. Hartnell had joined them about two years ago now, a few years after Mcloughlin himself had joined them after their first Sergeant and friend had died during a job in Syria. The man looked rather gloomy this particular night so Mcloughlin decided to leave him alone and turned in for the night.


	2. Chapter 2

For the cold nights the desert gave them, the sun made up for it during the day with blistering hear that scorched everything in it's path. As if nothing could get any worse, McLoughlin and his team were currently stuck behind some old ruins and a dune, firing back at a group that had tagged then down and wouldn't leave them alone. McLoughlin was usually a great shot but this particular morning not was not on his side. He watched as every bullet he had aimed and fired missed their targets quite successfully. McLoughlin was worried but not by much as he watched his unit take the men down one by one. Samwell was an excellent sniper alone with Specialist Barnes' helping guiding him along the way. They took the now dead men's jeep as their own as a way to get back to their Base quicker. After the man had got inside and shut the door on him to his surprise, McLoughlin figured it was for earlier and hopped onto the back instead to lay back in the sun and red until they had reached their destination. 

When he woke up he sensed something was wrong. Different. McLoughlin sat up to see what it was and saw they had stopped moving. Even though it was dark due to it being night, he could see that the vehicle that once was occupied by his men was now empty. He grabbed at his gun and hopped out to get a feel of his surroundings and saw that he was back on base. He listened to the familiar sounds and watched other soldiers milling around either for a stroll, on patrol or to head back to their quarters. Relieved to be on safer pundits, McLoughlin turned and started for the main building on Base, figuring his team would be there for a briefing. 

 

He could tell he was right as he opened the door, no one paying the Sergeant any attention as he entered the room. McLoughlin moved around to lean back against a wall and listen to what was being said before he would intervene on their disaster of a mission. He had a few things to say to the general. 

"..Three were disarmed before the secondary blast..."

Samwell was speaking now, the rest of the team were silent as he and the general spoke. 

"And how many were taken, Sergeant?"

The general spoke now, Samwell lookin down as he paused at a thought. 

"It was hard to tell with the ambush, sir."

"Sergeant, who was killed from our unit?"

"The Rogers' team and McLoughlin from what I've seen, sir"

McLoughlin glanced over to Specialist Ted Barnes with a frown. 

"Sergeant McLoughlin? Renegade-"

"Yes. There's only one McLoughlin, general."

"Guys, quit playing the fool and get on with it."

McLoughlin called over to them but again no one was paying him any attention and they were all now focused on Hartnell who had been speaking during McLoughlin's outburst. 

"Just before the ambush, we had cleared the streets so we could get a better look on what we were working with and successfully disarmed the car bombs."

Samwell took a seat a in one of the chairs, hiding his pained expression behind dirty hands while Barnes remained standing with his hands clasped around himself and eyes focused on nothing behind McLoughlin. 

"What happened, Specialist?" 

Hartnell had gone silent again and failed to respond to the general's questions until he was prompted by Barnes. 

"The bombs were disarmed but a child wandered onto the street"

"I thought the streets had even evacuated?"

"It was. It was obvious the child didn't want to be there and something was clearly wrong. We called out to him but he didn't speak English and if he did he wasn't cooperating"

McLoughlin was silent. Remaining where he was standing ad he focused on Hartnell's voice and the expressions of the men around him. Hurt? Guilt? Anger perhaps? 

"Two men ran out of nowhere and started shouting and calling, urging the child on who was in tears now. Against our protests, McLoughlin headed for the child whilst we aimed and shouted at the men. They wouldn't stop. They wouldn't back down"

"But didn't McLoughlin have on the suit?"

McLoughlin felt sick now as he remembered the little boy who couldn't have been no more older than ten years old. The boy looked confused and scared, yelling and shaking his head, body stiffened as if afraid to move as he had tried to call the kid away from the men. He should have seen it earlier.

"He did have the suit on before but he removed the helmet to try and talk to the kid and the men hit the trigger taking both McLoughlin and the boy out."

Samwell sat up with a nod before glancing over to Specialist Barnes who hadn't said a word and looked just as upset as he was. It happened we so fast but he should have seen it before. 

"Before the ambush happened they had set off that bomb as a signal. Bait. The suit would have done no good to him either way. Sergeant McLoughlin died back on Baghdad streets, sir"


End file.
